THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Patent for tire chain issued

On this day in 1904, Harold D. Weed of Canastota, New York, is issued U.S. Patent No. 768,495 for his “Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires,” a non-skid tire chain to be used on automobiles in order to increase traction on roads slick with mud, snow or ice.

At the time, Weed worked for the Marvin and Casler Company, a Canastota machine shop that made a range of products including automobile engines, name plate machines, automatic palm readers and motion picture equipment. He reportedly drew inspiration for his tire chain from the habit of some local motorists who wrapped rope around their tires to increase traction on muddy country roads. In his patent, Weed said that his invention aimed to “provide a flexible and collapsible grip or tread composed entirely of chains linked together and applied to the sides and periphery of the tire and held in place solely by the inflation of the tire, and which is reversible.” The tire chain was assembled around a tire when it was partially deflated; after hooks on either end of the chain were fastened, the tire was then reinflated. Weed’s tire chains were soon found to work just as well on snow and ice as on mud.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

In 1908, in a promotional effort, representatives of the Weed Chain Tire Grip Company challenged the master magician Harry Houdini to escape from a prison created by their product. According to “The Secret Life of Houdini,” by William Kalush and Larry Sloman, Houdini was enmeshed in a series of looped, locked tire chains, then chained into two steel-rimmed automobile tires. At one point during the escape, the chains had to be moved lower, as Houdini was turning blue from one of them binding his throat; he was then able to release himself. Houdini performed this famous stunt during a weeklong engagement at Hammerstein’s Theatre in New York.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

Harry Weed eventually sold his tire chain patents to the American Chain and Cable Company, the successor to the Weed Chain Tire Grip Co. After serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army during World War I, he held patents for devices related to the tire chain and was honored by the Army Ordnance Committee for his work in designing bomb-release mechanisms and machine gun synchronizing devices for use in aircraft. He died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1961, at the age of 89.

FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

ALSO ON THIS DAY

The death of silent-screen idol Rudolph Valentino at the age of 31 sends his fans into a hysterical state of mass mourning. In his brief film career, the Italian-born actor established a reputation as the archetypal screen lover. After his death from a ruptured ulcer was ...read more

Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder. On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, was shot and killed along with his guard. The ...read more

On this day in 1902, pioneering cookbook author Fannie Farmer, who changed the way Americans prepare food by advocating the use of standardized measurements in recipes, opens Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery in Boston. In addition to teaching women about cooking, Farmer later ...read more

On this day in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs. After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, ...read more

The American cargo ship Baton Rouge Victory strikes a mine laid by the Viet Cong in the Long Tao River, 22 miles south of Saigon. The half-submerged ship blocked the route from the South Vietnamese capital to the sea. Seven crewmen were killed. ...read more

Communist forces launch rocket and mortar attacks on numerous cities, provincial capitals, and military installations. The heaviest shelling was on the U.S. airfield at Da Nang, the cities of Hue and Quang Tri. North Vietnamese forces numbering between 1200 and 1500 troops ...read more

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.

On this day in 1989, as punishment for betting on baseball, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose accepts a settlement that includes a lifetime ban from the game. A heated debate continues to rage as to whether Rose, a former player who remains the game’s all-time hits leader, should ...read more

On this day in 1814, first lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of George Washington from being looted by British troops during the war of 1812. According to the White House Historical Society and Dolley’s personal letters, President James Madison left the White House on August ...read more

Texas Ranger John Armstrong arrests John Wesley Hardin in a Florida rail car, returning the outlaw to Texas to stand trial for murder. Three years earlier, Hardin had killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in a small town near Austin, Texas. Webb’s murder was one in a long series of ...read more

The most famous and widely quoted observation about rock pioneers the Velvet Underground is generally credited to guitarist Brian Eno, who supposedly said that while only a handful of people bought their albums in their original release, every one of those people was inspired to ...read more

Edgar Lee Masters, whose Spoon River Anthology will have a deep influence on writers of the 1920s, is born in Garnett, Kansas, on this day in 1869. As a child, Masters lived in small towns in Illinois. His mother, from New England, was homesick for her old East Coast life filled ...read more

On this day in 2000, Richard Hatch, a 39-year-old corporate trainer from Rhode Island, wins the season-one finale of the reality television show Survivor and takes home the promised $1 million prize. In a four-to-three vote by his fellow contestants, Hatch, who was known for ...read more

The first cases of an encephalitis outbreak are reported in New York City on this day in 1999. Seven people die from what turns out to be the first cases of West Nile virus in the United States. A cluster of eight cases of St. Louis encephalitis was diagnosed among patients in ...read more

Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian teenager who was kidnapped at age 10, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after more than eight years. Shortly after her escape, Priklopil committed suicide. On March 2, 1998, Kampusch was abducted from a street in Vienna while walking to ...read more

Russian ballet star Aleksandr Godunov defects to the United States after a performance in New York City. He became the first dancer to defect from the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet. Godunov was the latest in a string of Soviet ballet dancers to defect to the United States in the ...read more

Allan Pinkerton, head of the new secret service agency of the Federal government, places Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow under house arrest in Washington, D.C. Greenhow was a wealthy widow living in Washington at the outbreak of the war. She was well connected in the capital ...read more

On this day in 1784, four counties in western North Carolina declare their independence as the state of Franklin. The counties lay in what would eventually become Tennessee. The previous April, the state of North Carolina had ceded its western land claims between the Allegheny ...read more

On August 23, 1914, in their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the ...read more